Sift Read online

  I hesitated before speaking. My dad and Perry hadn’t shot Cade yet, so I doubted they’d want to shoot Connor. “They would probably strip you naked and tie you to a post in the center of town to be ridiculed, but they wouldn’t shoot you. Most likely.”

  I watched as he struggled not to smile again, but it came anyway. “See?” He gestured between us. “There’s that. There was that from the very instant you spoke to me. So, I took a chance, and you didn’t seem to mind. You could have told me to go away when I moved over to share my manly snack with you.”

  I spoke in a grave undertone. “I was just using you for your nachos.”

  “Hmm. I know.”

  I sighed again. “It was fun talking to you, Connor, but…I…I have…” I made a sound of exasperation. “Twenty-four hours ago I had a boyfriend.”

  One eyebrow went up. “Did you lose him in the market or something?”

  I let out a small laugh, and he smiled hesitantly. We eyed each other for a moment. I didn’t know how to explain Cade to him. I told myself and my family that I was done with him, but I felt as if I left unfinished business back up north.

  As it turned out, I didn’t have to tell Connor anything. His chest rose and fell with a sigh of his own, and he smiled again, though it seemed forced. “So, it’s you and not me.”

  I winced. “Sorry.”

  “Well, hey, we can still be…pals.”

  I hesitated. “Pals?”

  “You at least owe me a pal-ship after I shared my nachos with you. I think I’m being perfectly reasonable here, Darla.”

  I laughed again, maybe a little harder than necessary in a vain effort to expel those damn butterflies floating around in my stomach.

  “Fine. We can be…pals, Connor.”

  “Shake on it.” He held out his hand to me.

  I stared at it for a moment like I had earlier before I slipped my hand into his.

  “Cool,” he said and peered over my shoulder. “Looks like your brother’s ready to go.” He met my gaze again. There was something in his eyes that made my heart skip. “It was a pleasure to meet you, pal.”

  We stared at each other for a long moment, before I finally softly reciprocated. “You, too.”

  I couldn’t help but to look back at him once more a few minutes later before the door to Louie’s closed between us.

  Chapter Nine

  I decided that I wanted to call Cade that night. It was late, but he usually worked at the restaurant until at least one-thirty or two in the morning. I was going to call him after a much-needed shower, but when I wiped the fog off the mirror in the bathroom, I saw them. The bruises.

  A small one on my chest from when Cade threw my phone at me like a missile and the thumb-shaped bruises on both of my upper arms from when he had grabbed a hold of me. The inside of my bottom lip suddenly began to hurt, or maybe it had been hurting all day and night, and I had just gotten used to it like I did with everything else with Cade that wasn’t necessarily right.

  That was why you wanted a break, I reminded myself as I blinked back tears. Not because of the screaming and shouting, or my hidden hurt feelings about him once again refusing to go home with me. No. It was because he had physically hurt me. Again. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t on purpose. It was never on purpose.

  I went to bed without calling or texting Cade, but I dreamed of him. I dreamed of his touch, electrifying and dangerous.

  Chapter Ten

  I dragged myself out of bed early the following morning. I wanted to check the kitchen to make sure that all my baking instruments were still there and in working order, and I had to get money from my dad to pay for what I needed for Kenzie’s shower. He was already awake, dressed in his uniform, and seated at the kitchen table with a newspaper and a cup of coffee.

  “Mornin’, Daddy.” I kissed the side of his head and patted his shoulder.

  “Hey, my Darlin’ Darla. Why you up so early?”

  I pulled open a pair of cabinet doors and quietly began to root around. I didn’t want to wake Daisy, my five-year-old brother Caleb and my seven-month-old sister Caroline.

  Most people thought my dad was crazy for starting another family after his kids were already grown, but he wasn’t an old man. He was only forty-nine. If Daisy and the little ones made him happy, I was on board with it.

  “I gotta go out and find everything I need to make Kenzie’s cake. By the way, I still need a means to pay for it all if you please.”

  “I’ll pay for whatever you need, but I don’t understand why you can’t get what you need at Tilda’s.”

  I responded distractedly as I peered suspiciously at a cake pan. “If I were making her an ordinary cake, or a box cake, I would go to Tilda’s.”

  “I really don’t get it,” he grumbled. “It’s a cake. Flour, eggs, butter, and sugar. Tilda’s got all that.”

  I looked over at him. I knew what was coming, what his comments were leading to. I tried to make my voice sound light and unoffended in the hopes that he’d let it go.

  “Well, Daddy, those are some of the ingredients in a cake, yes, but it’s for McKenzie’s first baby. I want it to be special and extra pretty. I have to go somewhere else to get the things I need to do that.”

  He peered at me over the rim of his glasses for a moment. Then he sighed and reached into his pocket for his wallet. He opened it up and glanced at me again with one blonde-gray eyebrow raised.

  “Do you need any extra cash for yourself?”

  Of course, I did, but I didn’t want to take it from him. I wasn’t too proud to take it, but I felt that my dad often wielded the money like a weapon.

  “No, Daddy, I’m fine. Besides, you just gave me money a few months ago.”

  He’d given me a thousand dollars, entirely too much money, even for a gift, but he’d refused to take it back. I had needed it, though. That money covered my portion of rent in the apartment I shared with my best friend and helped me in a multitude of other places.

  “I’m gonna give you my credit card for McKenzie’s cake, but I’m leaving you some cash for yourself, too.”

  “I don’t want it, Daddy,” I sighed.

  “You might not want it, Darla, but we both know you need it. Until you get it through your head that your current lifestyle isn’t gonna really support you, you’re always gonna need it.”

  My small string of patience was already too short to hold on to.

  “My current lifestyle?” I parroted irritably. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “You’re in a dead-end, lousy-paying job and got yourself a dead-end boyfriend to go with it.”

  I kept my voice low so not to disturb the house’s sleeping inhabitants, but I was furious, and I made sure that he could hear it as well as see it on my face.

  “I am not in a dead-end job, Daddy. It’s an apprenticeship. I’m not going make a fortune, and even when I do reach my full potential, I’m still not going to make a fortune, but I don’t really care! That’s not why I’m doing it. I’m doing it because I love it, and I’m fucking good at it! And Cade don’t have anything to do with any of this.”

  He stood up, face red with anger. “Don’t you use that damn language with me, little girl. I could get you a decent job anywhere around here, where it’s cheaper to live, where your family is, but you want to do everything the hard way. What the hell have you accomplished in the five years you been gone, Darla? You still living in the same tiny apartment, driving the same piece of shit car, and still with a man who ain’t worth anything. You want things that are damned impossible.”

  “It’s not the hard way.” I pointed to myself. “It’s my way, and I don’t want to be here in this town or anywhere near it. I’d rather be living in my tiny ass apartment, with my piece of shit car, and keep my boyfriend than to live here. And nothing is impossible!”

  “Why?” he demanded. “Why don’t you want to be here? You think you too good for us down here? You think you better because you had a taste of the outside
world?”

  I growled in frustration. “No, Daddy. I never said that, I never will say that, and I don’t even think that. This place just isn’t for me. It’s not what I want with my life, and it is my life, not yours. Not anyone else’s.”

  I walked over to the table, snatched the credit card up, but left the stack of bills on the table.

  “Darla,” he called after me as I pulled my coat on in the front hallway. “Come take this money. You know I don’t expect you to pay it back.”

  “Yeah, you don’t expect me to pay it back because you never expect me to make anything out of myself,” I snapped. “I don’t want your damn money.”

  I walked outside but didn’t slam the door even though I wanted to slam it hard enough to make the house fall down.

  Twenty minutes later I stood on the side of the road cursing my car, cursing my dad, and myself. The 1996 Ford Bronco shook, rattled, and rolled to a stop just on the edge of town. I had tried to restart it several times, but it refused to turn over.

  I did not have time for a breakdown. Even worse, I didn’t want to have to call my dad just so he could shove more of his opinions down my throat. There was no one else to call. Everyone was either at work already or on their way. I would have to walk back into town and try to convince Billy, the man who owned the one gas station in town, to give me a tow, but then what? Would I end up making my sister a Tilda’s-basic cake anyway? The idea of it made me spit on the ground with distaste.

  I had just grabbed my keys and gloves from the car when a big black truck with tinted windows eased up beside me. I pretty much knew everyone who lived in town, but with the prison nearby, we sometimes got strange people riding through. I didn’t recognize the truck and took one weary step backward as the window began to go down.

  “Hey, pal,” Connor said, grinning down at me.

  Chapter Eleven

  I sat inside Connor’s truck, thankful for the warmth coming through the vents after thirty minutes out in the cold while he tried to get my Bronco started. It had turned over a few times, only to sputter out a few seconds later. After a while, it had stopped responding at all.

  “Why don’t you go warm up in my truck while I call Billy for a tow?” he’d suggested as I stood on the side of the road shivering.

  “Just don’t call my dad,” I pleaded. I had realized that I sounded like I was a six-year-old that was about to get into trouble, but Connor didn’t laugh at me.

  “I won’t call your dad. Go warm up.” He’d nodded toward the truck.

  He didn’t have to twist my arm. I thought the few minutes alone would also give me a chance to rethink McKenzie’s cake plan since it was looking more and more like I wasn’t going to get out of town.

  I felt like I was in a horror movie. “Welcome to Craigsville, Virginia,” I murmured to myself. “You can check out, but you can never leave.”

  I watched through the windshield as Connor spoke to Billy. With something like giddy horror, I realized how good looking he really was in the light of day instead of the dimness of the bar—Connor, not crusty old Billy. Connor was more than good looking. He was—as my best friend Cherry would say—thigh-quivering hot. Even with the beard.

  He was dressed in a long-sleeved red flannel shirt, a black vest, dark jeans, brown boots, and wore a gray beanie on his brown hair. I guess it was country-hipster. It was a look I would have typically rolled my eyes at, but Connor wore the outfit as if he had invented it like the fused style had been his idea all along.

  Connor ended the phone call with Billy. I expected him to come back to the truck, but he dialed another number instead. As he brought the phone to his ear, he glanced at me and gave me a quick tight smile, but then the person he was calling answered. I saw his mouth form the word, “hey,” but then he turned his back on me.

  Maybe it was my imagination, but he seemed a little tense. One hand closed on the back of his neck like maybe he was uncomfortable. It wasn’t the reluctance I’d seen in him before at the bar, it seemed like it was something else altogether.

  After a few minutes, he ended his second phone call and finally came back to the truck.

  “Billy will come by to tow your truck in a few minutes. I told him to take it to my place and leave it out front.”

  I felt my nose wrinkle as I stared at him in confusion. “Why your house?”

  He gave me a sidelong glance. “Would you rather it go to your dad’s?”

  I frowned. “No.”

  “Why don’t you want him to know about it if you don’t mind my asking?”

  I did mind. Not because of Connor himself, but my emotions were still raw from the argument. However, he had helped me out in a big way by rescuing me off the side of the road.

  “We had a fight just before I left the house this morning. After I refused to take some money he offered me, he proceeded to tell me how much of a loser he thinks I am. He also said that my car was a piece of shit. I hate that he’s right about the car. I hate that I will most likely have to take that money anyway to pay for it to get fixed.” I glanced at him, apologetic and a little embarrassed. “I’m sorry. You don’t even know me, and I’m telling you about my problems.”

  He shook his head and gave me a small smile. “Don’t be sorry. I asked. Maybe I don’t know you well, but I do know your dad. I don’t think he thinks you’re a loser, but…” He paused and tapped his fingers on the steering wheel as he seemed to maul something over in his mind. “I have an idea what’s wrong with your Bronco. Maybe I can fix it for you, and you can just pay me whatever you can afford. You won’t have to ask your dad for money.”

  I gave him a doubtful look. “What I can ‘afford’ probably won’t even cover the cost of the parts, let alone the labor you would put in.” I shook my head and sighed. “I appreciate it, but I can’t ask you to do that.”

  “You didn’t ask me. I offered.”

  I studied him. He didn’t look like he was bullshitting me in any way, but I couldn’t be sure. “No one makes an offer like that without wanting something in return.”

  He nodded as if he agreed with me. “You’re right. I do want something in return.”

  One eyebrow popped up, I said, “I don’t do sexual favors.”

  He gave me a flat look. “Believe it or not, I am fully capable of getting a woman into bed without an exchange of favors.”

  Oh, I did believe it.

  “Then what is it that you want?” I asked impatiently.

  He didn’t hesitate or skip any beats before he responded. “Have dinner with me tonight.”

  I stared at him. Yep, he was serious.

  “So, you won’t fix my car and let me pay you only what I can afford if I don’t have dinner with you? You don’t need sexual favors in exchange for your work, but you need dinner?”

  He made an exasperated sound in his throat, but he smiled and spoke softly. “Of course, I’ll fix your car and let you pay me what you can afford, but you can’t blame a guy for trying to have dinner with a beautiful woman.”

  “Oh.” I relaxed a little. “But—”

  “The boyfriend you lost in the market?” He looked away thoughtfully for a moment before he settled his gaze on me again. “Maybe this makes me a bad guy, but until you can unquestioningly confirm that you have a boyfriend, I am going to treat you as if you are single.”

  I found myself staring at him again with my heart beating in my throat. “I love him,” I whispered, and then wanted to snatch the words back. They were true enough, but they were very personal words, and Connor was all but a stranger to me.

  “I love Brooke Shields,” he said solemnly. “But we are not together.”

  “But I…wait…” I felt my face screw up as I looked at him. “You love Brooke Shields? Not the Brooke of the Pretty Baby and King of the Gypsies era, because that would just be very wrong.”

  He frowned reproachfully at me. “Of course not. I’ve never seen Pretty Baby and never will. The whole premise of the movie makes my skin crawl.
I’m talking about Brooke of the Suddenly Susan era.”

  “I can honestly say that I’ve never seen that show.”

  “I have every season on DVD. Maybe we can watch a few episodes when you come over for dinner.”

  I couldn’t help it. I laughed quietly as I shook my head. I couldn’t believe the conversation we were having.

  “Regardless of my relationship status, I can’t have dinner with you tonight. I have to start McKenzie’s cake as soon as possible. I mean, that’s assuming that I’ll have an opportunity to get all I need for it today.”

  I gazed out at my truck with the wild hope that it would start, just from my sheer will alone. It didn’t.

  “I can drive you wherever you need to go today,” Connor offered. “I don’t have to work today, so I have time. Then you can bake at my house. I have a state of the art kitchen. I have an enormous amount of prep space, and I even have two ovens.”

  I looked at him curiously. “Do you cook?”

  He grinned and shook his head. “Not even a little bit. It all came with the house.”

  I smiled but declined with a short shake of my head. “I can’t bake at your house. It’s a long process, especially trying to get it done so quickly. I couldn’t impose on you that long.”

  I was tempted, though. Creating Kenzie’s cake wasn’t just about technical skill, but I was going to put my heart and soul into it, as I did for every cake, cookie, bread, or dessert I made. After the fight with my dad, however, I had no idea what I would be dealing with in his kitchen later.